I hope that your Friday was better than mine! I have been living in the land of drama this week…

Between getting called in to the teacher’s office for my son’s handwriting, losing one of our new kittens *so sad*, and fighting other little fires at every corner–it has been a crap week.

Don’t you hate it when you see an ad for a new beauty product that looks so amazing that you just have to have it, only to find out when you go to use it that its not at all what you thought it would be? I know, I know-we are supposed to do our research before buying these things, but I just had to have this Forest Fury palette from the new Color Explosion line by Maybelline. Its hard to find a really beautiful chartreuse/lime green, and this one appeared to be everything I wanted and then some! I bought it using my CVS beauty bucks and everything…

Who am I kidding? This still doesn’t justify not doing my homework. It was an impulse purchase, plain and simple. I deserve my punishment, right?

So, I got it home and saw that it wasn’t what I wanted-but my local CVS does not let me return opened products (how in the world are some of you able to return these things? i have yet to figure this out!). I am stuck with this thing. Ugh! So, I guess I could have given it away…but why not just make this into an opportunity?

My goal is to update this post at some point this weekend with swatches and a review, so come back and check it out if you want to know the deets on how each shadow performs. I had all five of these palettes (and I soooo want to call them quads, but there are actually five eye shades in each: four eyeshadows and a sparkly “topcoat”), but I ended up giving my stepdaughter Kristen the neutral one. I didn’t love that one, but I just saw LovePeaceandLipgloss do a rockin’ tutorial using it! I guess that just goes to show that different strokes fit different folks.

I hope that you get a kick out of the video, I decided to call it “Crap Palette Eye Tutorial” because I basically outline how I work with a crap palette. Early on in my makeup journey, I learned how to work with what I had–and this palette kinda took me back to those days. The trick, I find, is to first apply the eyeshadow wet for higher color payoff. Then you can always go back over with a coat of the dry shadow to blend. I do this a lot with shades where I love the color but can’t stand the payoff, an great example is Electric Eel by MAC. I know a lot of people have really good luck with this eyeshadow, but I have to really coax it into working! Its so worth it for that color, and the lime green color in this palette is worth it too.

I love the way this tutorial turned out. I would love to hear what you think about it-do you own it? Do you have other shadows you have to really work with or are you beyond that? Do you really research every single purchase before you make it? If you do, you are a more disciplined shopper than me. I can’t resist a bright-looking color, just like I can’t resist cute packaging. 😉